Elijah

During one of the first events of the 2026/2027 artistic season, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's magnum opus — the Eliasz oratorio — will sound at NFM. In addition to outstanding soloists, the NFM Choir and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra will take part in its performance — ensembles founded by maestro Andrzej Kosendiak, which are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their existence. From their well-deserved artistic directors Lionel Sowa and Jarosław Thiel, the world-renowned conductor David Reiland will take over the baton on this day.

A year after taking office as director of the Wrocław Philharmonic, Andrzej Kosendiak initiated the activity of two ensembles, whose absence was impressively felt by the musical community of the capital of Lower Silesia. From 2015 until today, the NFM Choir and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra reside in the “space for beauty” — NFM. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of their activity, the artists will present a majestic and solemn work — a masterpiece of Protestant oratorical work, premiered in August 1846 in Birmingham, England.

Mendelssohn, from a young age fascinated by the passions of Johann Sebastian Bach, intended to restore to the music of his faith the magnificence which it enjoyed thanks to his great predecessor. England, in love with George Friedrich Handel's almost century-old oratorios, such as the Messiah, was eager to host German artists. Taking as a model the works of both these masters, whom he knew well as a conductor, the author of the “Italian” Symphony worked on Elijah for ten years. The shape of his oratory consisted of recitatives, arias and choirs and several dramatized scenes. The plot, clearly presented in two parts and accessible musically elaborated, covers the biblical stories of the prophet known to us from the Books of Kings: the defeat of the drought, the feeding of the ravens, the resurrection of the widow's son, the duel to bring fire with the prophets of Baal, the escape to the holy mountain of Horeb from Queen Jezebel and the Assumption riding on a fiery chariot. In addition to texts about events in the life of the prophet, the librettist used other passages of Scripture - primarily the Psalms. A reviewer for “The Times” quipped the premiere with the words: “there has never been a fuller triumph.” You can expect that after this concert.